Encounter
by Maraba
Summary: Chichiri muses after Mitsukake's death


Encounter  
By Maraba  
  
  
  
  
Author: Maraba  
Email: woad_isatis@yahoo.com  
Last Modified: 09/26/00  
Title: Encounter  
Type of Work: fanfiction: FY/Valdemar Crossover (sort of)  
Spoilers: mild for Chichiri's past  
Warnings: rather dark, angsty  
Keywords: Chichiri, Mitsukake  
  
  
  
  
I was barely a man when I learned what sacrifice meant. What was awakened by agony, how near I came to shriveling in its flame. You knew, didn't you, with your healer's senses, you saw. Ah, my silent friend, there was very little you didn't see. We learned the same lessons you and I. We studied under the same harsh rule.  
  
I met a warrior once, a weapons-master from some obscure barbarian tribe. When she moved it was with the implacable mastery of a goddess summoning forth the elements to devour the earth. This woman, veiled in black, sworn will to blade gave me a secret. I still hear her words, twinned with the voice of Suzaku that I only later learned to follow. I stumbled into her camp, one night of a thousand spent seeking oblivion and she spared me, that I might spare myself.  
  
She looked at me, this prophet robed in steel, and told me that true strength is found only one way: seek the source. Strip away and destroy all that is not the essential core. Throw it away, into the flame that marks the rise of the phoenix, the flame that tempers the soul as a blade tortured in the forge.  
  
She looked at my ravaged face, her unyielding eyes grimly stripping away the fragile walls I had only begun to build around myself. Her voice never wavered, steady as the sword she could wield with such precision and skill, steady as the steel I wish so desperately to embrace: " Masks do not stand up to the fire of a spirit honed in agony. Seek the source, embrace the fire. That is the only way: to be in the burning, to stand naked in the conflagration." Then she laughed and even now in my darkest moments that laughter echoes in my dreams, " You deceive yourself, mageling if you think hiding will heal." I watched as she balanced her blade in her hand, testing its balance. "My soul is steel and it flows from my hand, heart and will. What is yours?" Swiftly she pressed the flat of her blade against my knee, and I felt my sigil, the brand of my God throbbing in response. "Do Gods wrongly choose?" she lifted my chin with the point of her blade and her words penetrated my heart down a bridge of cold gray metal: " Some wounds never heal, mageling, but in bleeding strength can be born. What is the sacrifice your God would call forth? What the gift given in return?" Again she laughed, tossing her blade carelessly in the air, catching and sheathing it faster than my eye could follow. "My craft was born of devastation and with my blade I serve my Goddess. When you know Who you serve and why, you have earned the right to choose. Until then, your wish for death is only cowardice disguised under a mantle of guilt."  
  
I was such a fool, my friend. I scorned her words, gestured to the veil that concealed her face, leaving only those piercing eyes free to hunt, to penetrate, to haunt, "You stand there hiding your face and speak to me of masks!" I laughed at her, taunting death, begging as only a young fool can beg for what he does not truly want.   
  
The warrior with the glow of the God-bound merely inclined her head, "My mask is that of remembrance to be worn or discarded at will. I wish to remember all that I was, all that drove me to my sword-bond, all that inspired my service. Loss and pain are not things to be tossed away, child, but gifts to be treasured. Without them, I would never have learned who I was or become what I am. I have no wish to forget, merely to honor. It is a mark of my service. Such things leave a brand on the body, and it is a thing to be shared with few." She reached up and removed her veil. I do not know who she was, I only know that as I gazed upon her face, I felt for the first time, the hand of my own God closing around my heart.  
  
She told me many things that night, speaking of sacrifice, of duty, and of loss. You always asked me why I would never permit you to heal my scarred face, why I insisted on wearing my mask. Ah, Mitsukake, sometimes it is only behind the opaque eyes of a mask that one can truly see. It allows people to approach with safety, knowing that there is no judgement...but you knew that already, didn't you?   
  
I will be your memory. I will witness this last sacrifice you have chosen, my friend. You will not go alone through this final service. You see, I finally understood what the Sword Sworn was trying to tell me so long ago. Sacrifice isn't something we give up. It is what we do in spite of what we are given.   
  
  
  
  
Copyright 2000 by Maraba  
  



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